Finding The Gentleness of The Feast

In the last weeks of cooking school, as we prepared for our final exam, we worked to make our creations into perfections that would please the Chef/Instructors.  We created them over and over again each night, where the dishes were sent out to the school restaurant to delight the diners.  At lease we hoped they did!   Each of us hoped that on the day of the finals we would be give either a specific dish, or specific ingredients, to prepare where we usually had our greatest successes.  Creating came so much easier when it was a dish you felt really comfortable preparing.

For the last few years I have been following the practice of having a special word to ponder upon and meditate on for the New Year.  I hope to experience what it has to teach me, and also to be open to its transforming power.  I have read a number of articles in the last few weeks reminding me that it is time to open up myself to receive one for 2015.  Around this time one year ago I started opening my heart to what my ‘word’ would be for 2014.  “Feasting” was the word that came.   A word that reminded me of those ‘best’ creations from cooking school; something I loved creating and found great delight in.   I somehow expected this word to be about the action of feasting, of lively joyous meals around our dining table, with plenty of Don’t Eat Alone meals at our faith community.   Feasting would be all about creating and serving and while others came to enjoy the feast. This would all unfold easily and joyfully I thought.

Feasting, throughout 2014,  has been about abundance - enough to eat, plenty of laughter and love, energetic and lively discussions, and plenty of conversations woven around difficult places in our lives that held hope and tenderness.  We have enjoyed good wine and great desserts and sat around the table until the wine was finished and we had no space left to eat another bite.  There have been Don’t Eat Alone dinners where the number of people sitting down to eat was double the number signed up!   Somehow the food stretched for everyone, although I was certain we would be short!  (I always worry about not haven enough for everyone almost every time I cook for a large group.)  Our second season of a Co-Op Kitchen had its abundances too.  After the learning experience of the first season working with the disenfranchised our cooking lunches this second time around was even more creative, empowering and fun.

I often enjoyed the large size gatherings from behind the scenes in the kitchen.   I would ask myself “how can I stay present when I am so busy trying to make sure everyone has a place, and has enough to eat?”   There must be many people out there who ask the same question and I would love to know how they find the right balance.  Realistically, if my calling is to be part of the preparing of the feast, I realize I have to lean into it and learn to trust that it will all unfold.  Leaning into it and trusting, theoretically, joy should be the flavour that seasons this work and in this I taste the feast from where I sit/stand.

Our church family had their annual St Nicolas lunch this past weekend, an annual pot luck that is well attended.  It was a loud and boisterous affair with everyone crowding into the hall after the service.   With so many unforeseen extras wishing to join the table at the last minute, the kitchen and hall staffs were somewhat overwhelmed. In the kitchen we were trying to make sure that all the food was properly heated while in the hall, extra room and extra tables had to be found.  It was crazy, hectic, joyful and frustrating all at once.  The conversation level grew louder while many guests, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, searched for a places to sit with their friends or family.  There was a full house for sure, but we did not have the heart to turn anyone away.  Perhaps this is also what the gentleness of the feast looks like - making room, giving welcome, ensuring that no one is turned away.  

Holding all of these thoughts, bundling them together, “Feasting” has become something quite different for me.  I have begun to observe that at the larger dinner events there are those of us who keep watch for those guests looking for spaces or looking a little confused.  I relish this role of gently inviting them to come in and assuring them that spaces will be found or new ones created. Feasting has come to be firstly about this gentleness in approach, outside the kitchen.  Creating feasts is not solely about practicing my culinary art in the kitchen but also being led to the table as a participant and being fully awake to the gentleness of that moment.  Seeing Feasting from this perspective becomes more than having an abundance of good food but about gratitude - gratitude for sacred space, peace, gentleness, story, colour, texture and a celebration of our senses.

There is a gentleness to be embraced individually around feasting.  Does how I eat become a way of honouring my body, and letting me love who and what I am?  This is a huge challenge for me!

Feasting and being nourished has taken on a new shape, new dimension for me.  In this year I have often thought of the gentleness of being fed  as the ancient prophet Hosea wrote about:

“But they did not know that it was I who was healing them,

who was guiding them on through human means with reins of love.

With them I was like someone removing the yoke from their jaws,

and I bent down to feed them.”

Another translation says “I gently caused them to eat.”

Yes, gentleness is an essential part of the feast.  I see that more fully now.

Gentleness is an essential piece of letting us see and honour the human dignity within each person.

Gentleness allows us to be more cautious in how we care for this Earth, this place that is home for us.   

Gentleness is how I see and experience God in the midst of my pain during my dark days and in the midst of an often frantic way of life.   

Gentleness is an invitation that makes space for all at the table

Gentleness that says all are worthy to come to the communion table, in fact,  more than worthy, for all are invited and welcomed there simply because that is how love is.

Gentleness that soothes the pain of injustice, that continues to be the voice for justness in the midst of injustice.

Gentleness invites each one of us to sit down, have a coffee or a meal, and share our ideas.  In our diversity and the differences we will share our need to eat, to be fed and to be seen and heard.

So come and sit down, take this place, your place at the table, and may gentleness rest upon your being.

The Taste of Emotions - Bitter, Sweet, Salty, Sour

I am sitting here holding things that create deep emotion in me.  It feels like I am ‘tasting’ these emotions as they pass through my mind and enter my heart.  Descriptions of taste are often associated with strong emotions, and my tasting them brings out the bitter, sweet, salty and sour in strong ways.

David came across a badly wounded cat on the road and stopped to tend to it.  It was so badly wounded, he knew it could not be saved.   So he gently, tenderly gathered it up, carried it to the side of the road and sat with it in his arms for the few moments it lived.   He had no idea who this beautiful feline belonged to.  He knew they would be distressed at loosing such a beautiful companion but he had no way of telling them.   I could hear the tenderness as he shared the story mixed with his confusion that anyone could not only harm a living thing but that they could just drive away and do nothing about it.  There is a sweet beauty in compassion while at the same time there is the bitter taste that pain and cruelty leave behind.

Several friends, who are very good writers, have been silent for some time.  Recently I have read their new pieces that have the underlying taste of salt of the tears present in their respective journeys.  What I hear is the wisdom that is growing within them, compassion with themselves and others, and how they are choosing to ‘walk out’ their stories in their actions in community.

I read the many tributes to Robin Williams and how he helped us laugh, yet how he struggled with addiction and depression, and as Anne Lamott writes “Here is what is true: a third of the people you adore and admire in the world and in your families have severe mental illness and/or addiction. I sure do. I have both. And you still love me. You help hold me up. I try to help hold you up. Half of the people I love most have both; and so do most of the artists who have changed and redeemed me, given me life. Most of us are still here, healing slowly and imperfectly. Some days are way too long.”    I have walked through depression and many I love have, and are, walking this road.  Many I love know the battle that addiction and depression brings to you.   The salty taste of many many tears and the taste of bitterness from wounds, and the sour taste of regret surround these journeys.  It is hard for those suffering to see that in this journey is the sweetness of who they are and what they have given to those they love and to those they never knew.   

I am thinking of the refugee camps that are flooded in Sudan, of the people fleeing extreme fundamentalist warriors, and there is little food and few places to run to.  I continue to hold the young women in Nigeria who have been taken from their school and held hostage, and seemingly there is little being done to find them and bring them home There are those in Israel and Gaza who have no home, no safety and they are the casualties of extreme thinking that leaves no space for peace, compassion, dialogue and working together.  Chaos surrounds places like Ukraine and other countries.  This suffering has no beauty that I can see and yet the courage I hear of and the beauty I see through many stories is amazing.   My friend Erin, working at One Shot Project in Iraq, is opening a window on what courage looks like in the midst of deep suffering and uncertainty.  Erin’s writing speaks of a strength that is beyond what I know.

I hold the treasured moments with Anna, my Granddaughter, as we picked raspberries and huckleberries together and her sweet conversations as we wandered around the garden.   Then as she helped me set the table for an evening meal, the memories of my own Grandmother’s love and patience as she showed me how to pick black currents in her garden came flooding in.  This is blessing and beauty, life shared, love expanded and love that totally surprises me still.   Anna’s arrival came with much struggle and there is an intense sweetness that her beautiful being gives to her parents and all those who love her.  This is a sweetness that is so very very precious.  A sweetness that is held with tenderness and is a treasure to be protected.

Working with some young people in the cafe, watching them struggle with things that they don’t know, it seems that no one has taught them simple routines for a workplace.  I silently remember all those who have taken my awkwardness, my inner pain that came out as anger, and they saw my hunger to learn, to know, and to grow.  I have to step back and remember my Grandmother teaching me, my Mother showing me, and at an early age, my Dad taking me to work and telling me the importance of how to behave in a business setting.   I remember my beloved friend Edith, who didn’t point out my mistakes, made because of not knowing, but instead she used humour to guide me, to teach me and to encourage me to learn as much as I could to do the job well.   I have been nurtured and mentored by so many and now I find myself wondering how I can share that learning with these young people, to instruct them on the way to do things without humiliating them or making them feel inadequate.  How can they be inspired to learn so their path becomes one of being built up, of carrying compassion and integrity into the future of their lives?  

As I look back there are all the tastes of bitter, sweet, salty and sour.  Tastes that each have their way of teaching how to find the good, to learn to step away from what does not nurture, what can be kept and what we must leave behind in order to more forward.  There is deep gratitude for those who poured love, courage and wisdom into my life.  

Learning to discern the sweet, the bitter, the sour and salty, will take me a life time.  Yet as I continue to experience those tastes,  it is those very flavours in all their combinations that give a full rich flavour to life.   Today salt seems to be the strongest flavour, the salt of tears that have flowed,  but the taste of the sweet,  of all that is beautiful, is just as real and they mingle together. 

Simplicity As A Feast

Friday nights have been a night for easy food, relaxing, visiting and have as little schedule as possible.  At least that is how it has been for me since childhood until I entered the food industry.   Friday nights became a night for others to relax and have no schedule, and I was part of the team behind the scenes in the kitchen preparing the meal they had ordered.   Working in a commercial kitchen has tended to dull my focus on what the Feast can be.   The time has come to journey more deeply into an understanding and appreciation of it, and practically find the Holy moments of experiencing it.   This past Friday evening became one of those ‘experiencing’ moments.

We had been away for a few days but I had wanted to keep up my training for a half marathon I'd registered for.   On the first morning half way into my run, I had turned my head to look across the road, and then misplaced my left foot, resulting in a spectacular fall on the side of the road.  The result was a broken ankle, dashing my hopes of running this first half marathon!   Limping around the house, once we got home, I was feeling really sorry for myself because I was missing my running and I was missing my regular schedule of work in the cafe.   So comfort food was definitely in order on this Friday night and maybe creating it would be it own soothing affect.   As we had been away I was not sure what was in the fridge and pantry so I had to do some sleuthing to see what had potential to become ingredients for our evening meal.   There was some chorizo in the fridge that needed to be used somehow, there were onions and carrots (which should be a staple in any fridge) and some fresh spinach. A tin of tomatoes, some fusilli pasta in the pantry as well so all of this looked like it could become something for dinner that would be fairly decent.   I had time on my side so if I was to make a tomato sauce it could simmer away for at least an hour.   There were a few bottles of red wine in the wine rack and so I chose the one that had a screw top and was not a pricey bottle.  After all if I only used a little wine in the sauce at least I could easily close the bottle up again.  Well, actually I rather like drinking a glass of red wine while I am cooking so maybe we would have enough left to enjoy with dinner!

The onion, carrots and garlic were laid out ready to go.  Peeling carrots becomes a nice easy rhythm as they are stripped of their outer coat, looking clean and smooth afterwards.   I love my chef knife and  how it feels in my hands.   Chopping the carrots and onions into small dice size has its own  rhythm and beat.  The garlic is peeled and sliced and then diced small.   I love the feel of holding the blade of the knife sideways, giving a flat surface to press down onto the garlic and as you press and drag the knife blade over it is releases some of the juices.   This time of year my home grown garlic is long since eaten and so I have only the much dryer older garlic that comes from the local grocery store.  Oh how I look forward to a new crop of garlic once summer arrives!   In fact the tender shoots of what was planted last fall are already making a timid appearance in the garden.     I reach up to grab my saucier pan that hangs on the cast iron rack above the counter and get it heating up.   Once it is hot that lovely golden olive oil is poured into the pan and quite quickly it is hot enough to throw in onions, carrots and garlic.  They dance and sizzle as the edges change to a slight golden colour.   Salt, thyme and oregano get sifted through my fingers and fall into the pan, mingling their flavours and doing their bit in drawing out the flavours.   This is the moment to splash in the vibrant red rich red wine and let it begin to simmer and reduce, its fragrance rising as mist off the ingredients that are softening and absorbing each others flavours. Oh yes it does smell quite lovely!  I don’t mind using tinned tomatoes at all, in fact my friends in Italy used them all the time in making their simple and rich sauce.   Once the tomatoes were in, rinsing the can with a touch of water it makes sure everything ends up in the cooking process.  Last ingredient is a sprinkling of sugar.   Now all that is left is to bring it to a rolling bubble and then reduce the heat to let it simmer slowly, ever so slowly, and in doing so reduce it to further intensify the flavours.   It cooked slowly for about an hour so then it was time to once again bring out the invaluable chef knife and cube the chorizo.   As it sautéed in the fry pan, the fusilli cooked its way to a soft but el dente edible pasta.   The pasta gets added to the cooked chorizo and a ladle or two of the sauce are added.  When I was working with my friend Eddie, a fantastic chef, I learned a lot of tricks from him.   One, he made a great tomato sauce and two, he always put his pasta into the fry pan with the ingredients he was adding to it, then added a little sauce and brought it all up to a hot temperature just before serving it.  I love throwing in a big handful of fresh spinach and tossing it, allowing the heat of the pasta and sauce to wilt it.   Last thing - throw in the finely grated pecorino, myzithra, and a bit of sharp white cheddar in to the make the last toss.   That was the cheese I found in the fridge.  I poured the completed pasta dish into a beautiful blue pottery bowl that my husband has had for many years.  It looked so good on the table and the aroma was tantalizing.   It was a simple pasta, one meal in a beautiful pottery bowl.   A feast indeed, not because of lavishness or abundance, but because of the joy in the preparation, the anticipation of enjoying it, and the blessing of sharing this evening meal to nourish my life, and the life of my husband.

Feasting, in this Lenten season, seems to be drawing my focus to the simplicity of a feast, the essence of what nurtures us mind, body and soul.   Take the bread and wine, the simple ingredients of the Christian Eucharist.   I don’t fully understand yet the depth of this simple but profound Feast, but I do know that each time I come to the Communion Table, I am seeking more of what it offers.  That is a subject for another time.

In The Ordinary, Where Feasts are Hidden and Revealed

The day began with a run along the country road where the sounds of the water running down the ditches played a tune.  It became loud and vibrant where the water was full and rapid flowing, then changed tempo to a slower rhythm where the water was less, it moved a bit slower and took on a quieter tone.   My gaze was down the road but I heard the water flowing beside me play its own tune.   It was a feast of sounds, ordinary sounds that come from Creation.  They played their melody as I ran along this ordinary country road in the place I call home and it sang life to me.  It was a feast for my senses as I ran, as I listened, as I inhaled the sounds and smells of today.

Coffee midday connecting with a friend I hadn’t had a face to face chat with for some time, in a café that we both love some downtime was the next feast.   A big bowl of delicious steaming espresso coffee and a cup of chicken coconut curry soup with a large slice of fresh made warm ciabatta bread!   Soup and bread which are comfort food in the winter months brought me satisfaction.   The conversation with my friend brought me life – wide awake, be alert kind of life!

Banana squash that had grown in our garden this summer didn’t produce an abundant crop but there was one left from the harvest last fall.   I cooked it up and made a squash curry soup with apples.  It will be a quick and ready supper that I can take from the freezer in the future.  A feast, a simple feast with the abundance of our small garden that gives us beautiful produce, will give us a bowl of hot comforting soup this winter.

I brought the platter of food to the table tonight, and carrying it I felt deliciously alive!   It was spread upon a beautiful pottery platter that David has had for many years. Sautéed potatoes, which are a favourite of my beloved’s, lay beside free range chicken thighs that were seared in a little sesame oil and then cooked a little longer  bathed in kejup manis (an Indonesian soy sauce that also contains some star anise and is sweeter and thicker than normal soy sauce).  Some fresh green beans, blanched and then sautéed in a little butter were the ‘fresh’ ingredient for our meal.   We don’t always have wine during the week but a glass of Nk’Mip Tallon red wine added an aditional touch to this ‘ordinary’ meal, a feast of ordinary things that nourished us.

Today, looking back looks like a tender sweet banquet.  There were the sounds of nature and life that came with the morning run.   A simple lunch with a dear friend was another feast – the taste of communion, bread, soup and sweet conversation in a Light filled sacred space.  It was an ordinary evening meal that held the sacred ingredients of love, of Holiness, of wonder and communion, and the presence of the Beloved.   Home is this place where I am fully free to be myself, awake and alive to the reality that Love has given me precious gifts that I could not have imagined.

Yes, today was about feasting, finding the abundance, within the ordinary of every day life.   Tonight the question I sit with is what if finding and creating spaces for feasting with others is my life work?

Defining a Feast

Defining a “Feast”

When the word ‘feast’ is used is seems to most often be connected to a sumptuous amount of food, a large gathering of people and a meal that is eaten over a fairly long period of time.   It is most definitely connected to food and is often connected to too much food, almost gluttonous in content.  That seems to put a negative spin on it.   So what is a feast?

The Free Dictionary describes it as: east, commemorative banquet symbolizing communal unity. Generally associated with primitive rituals and later with religious practices, feasts may also commemorate such events as births, marriages, harvests, and deaths. The principal Christian feasts of the Western Church are Easter , Pentecost , Epiphany , and Christmas . The greater number of feasts (excluding Sunday, the weekly feast) fall on the same day of the month each year (e.g., Christmas) and constitute the temporal cycle. Some of the more important liturgical observances are movable (e.g., Easter) and are part of the sanctoral system. Among the Jews the chief feasts are Rosh ha-Shanah , the Feast of Tabernacles , Purim , Passover , Hanukkah , and Shavuot . In the Muslim world the Islamic feasts vary according to country and locale, although there are several feast days of universal importance. The most widely celebrated are the little and great feasts following the fast of Ramadan and the feast commemorating the birth of Muhammad. In Buddhist countries festive celebrations are usually associated with the birthday of Buddha, his attainment of Nirvana, or enlightenment, and his death. In India there are many national and regional Hindu feasts. One of the most important is the feast of Holi. See also vigil  and fasting.

According to my old Webster’s dictionary a Feast was:

1. a religious festival
2. A rich and elaborate meal
3. to delight  ie: to feast one’s eyes on a sight

In the Christian tradition the Eucharist is considered a feast.  The “sacrament’ is derived from the words that mean “sacred feast’ and ‘mystery’.

Nicola Fletcher writes “There is no simple way to define a feast because so much is due to the state of mind of the participants  (pg 3 Charlemagne’s Tablecloth).  She writes that “Holding a feast to enhance power or social standing has not disappeared, even though nowadays many are held ostensibly for charity (pg 4).    Feasts became a way of including those in the circle by inviting them and excluding those who did not fit by withholding an invite or participation in a feast.   In the early Persian culture their feasts were legendary and their ‘delight in indulgence impressed and seduced those who experienced it’ (pg 9 Charlemagne’s Tablecloth).

In the book Feasting with God: Adventures in Table Spirituality, author Holly Whitcomb writes that feasts were sensuous banquets filled with joy, a place where tears were wiped away.  They were a reminder of the sacredness of eating and celebrating, a feast to remind us that even though death happens, we are meant to be alive and to celebrate that life.  Whitcomb writes that feasts were places of joy and inclusiveness and could be a place of changing the world when one had a vision of “heaven on earth”.

From these various explanations ‘feasting’ was also an event where your senses were involved and clearly today a feast is still an event where your senses are enticed to participate.   In the early feasts there were the smells of the food that tantalized you, your palate tasted all the various flavours infused with rich exotic spices.  Your eyes took in the abundance of colour that was not only the food, but the rich and lavish fabrics of the garments people wore.  Entertainment was a part of early feasting, therefore inviting you to hear this part of the feast.  The conversations too would have added to the cacophony of sounds.  It could well have been sensory overload!

Armed with all of this information I sat down to write out what feasting means to me, today, in my culture, in my community, and with the history around it in my own life.

1. A feast involves good food.  It may be a full meal, or an assortment of small tasting plates, or it may even be a beverage and some delicious homemade treats/snacks.  It involves your senses.
2. Food is prepared and served that will nourish our bodies, our souls and our senses.   When our senses become involved we are invited more fully into a state of being ‘awake’ to all life around us. 
3. Company of friends, family and strangers together, in conversation that elicits laughter, honesty, authenticity, tears, wisdom, and life giving hope.  These are the intangible ingredients to a feast.
4. A setting that fosters equality and honour for all who gather.
5. A feast is marked by the reality that there is enough for everyone.  It is about abundance and sufficiency and not about excess and gluttony.  This could perhaps be an ingredient in also providing the sacred space for conversations where differences of philosophy and point of view can safely be shared and honoured. 
6. We all have something precious to bring to the table.  It will season the gathering in a unique way.
7. The feast always holds the reality that the celebration and the lament will always be with us. One does not exclude the other. These two, in my mind, are never separate.
8. It is becoming more clear to me that each feast holds a definite social justice ingredient.

There are most certainly more ingredients to any feast.   These are the ones that come to mind at present but as I explore this whole concept of feasting, and as I experience it more in the time ahead, I long to understand it more fully.  There is a longing within me to understand how the feast becomes a more inclusive and rich moment.  I yearn to find the Holy One in each sacred opportunity of feasting, and to experience a deeper sense of communion with God, and with each person at the feast.

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A Word for 2014 - Feasting

A Word for 2014 - FEASTING

The word that has found me, and now will take me on a new journey through this New Year, is the word “Feasting”.    Does this take any of you by surprise?   Actually it has taken me a bit by surprise!   The words over the last few years have been ones that suggested I be very intentional in how I hold them, act upon them, and let my heart be open to them and they were new ideas.   Feasting seems natural in one way, knowing how hospitality is my life theme, and bringing people together at the table is how I express that.  Yet feasting seems too connected to the materialism and gluttony of our culture today, in deep contrast to my desire to live more simply, to be more proactive in being careful with food sources, making the meal table a place of equality for everyone, and moving away from the thinking of excess.  Which then means that there is a new way of looking at ‘feasting’ for me in this next year.  It also suggests that my adventure will be putting those new ways into action here in my community and sharing them here on Eat, Savour, Linger, Live.  That will surely be a huge part of the adventure of 2014!   

There are a couple of books that I start this search with and I am sure more will be piled up on my desk as the year progresses.  

Feasting With God:  Adventures in Table Spirituality by Holly Whitcomb.   My husband gave me this book the second time I met him.  It was one he had and thought it might be one I could use!  One of the reasons I knew this man ‘saw’ me at the beginning of our relationship.

Charlemagne’s Tablecloth:  A Piquant History of Feasting by Nichola Fletcher.   A fabulous gift from my friend Angi in 2005 when I visited her.

Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around The Table, With Recipes by Shauna Niequist.   A Christmas gift from my husband this year.

I will share the following two pieces that speak to Feasting and hold wisdom that I want to incorporate in my way of seeing this subject.  I have shared them before and hope that as you read them for the first time, or a repeated time, that they will speak to you too.

“The feast is an opportunity for community.  We are inviting those around our table to share everything that is in front of them with one another.  A feast invites a celebration of abundance over scarcity, of community over individualism, of distribution over hoarding.  A feast invites us to celebrate that our God-given gifts are meant to be shared.”  (I cannot remember where I found this quote but I love it)

Feasting and Fasting by Jim Burklo, found on progressivechristianity.org

“So let us feast on simple pleasure, and fast from all that gets our bodies and souls out of balance.

Let us feast on kindness and fast from sarcasm.

Let us feast on compassion, and fast from holding grudges.

Let us feast on patience, and fast from anxiety.

Let us feast on peace, and fast from stirring up needless conflict.

Let us feast on acceptance and fast from judgement.

Let us feast on joy and fast from jealousy.

Let us feast on faith, and fast from fear.

Let us feast on creativity, and fast from all that deadens our souls.

Let us feast on social justice, and fast from negligence of the most vulnerable.

Let us feast on service to others, and fast from selfishness.

Let us feast on delight and fast from despair.

Let us feast on bread and wine in spiritual communion, and fast from all that keeps us from communing deeply with one another so that our lives might be sufficient, fulfilled, complete, whole, enough.

Amen